This community announcement is provided to all unit owners of Bohol Jewel in order give updates and discuss issues. You can also leave comments at the end of the announcement. Here are the topics for this announcement:
- Monthly fee complaints
- Restaurant and other expected opening
- Generator usage during pandemic
- Situation in Bohol
- Other issues
- New customer area
Monthly fee complaints
Even though the monthly fee was agreed to in our contracts and goes towards maintaining the property, it is always a source of problems especially during the pandemic. We have received complaints from some owners about paying the monthly fee while they cannot come to Bohol. I fully understand these complaints because this pandemic has lasted 1.5 years already and these fees are starting to add up for some owners.
Let me first detail what the monthly fees are paying for, and then we can talk about what options we have to lower the fee. The monthly expenses vary slightly from month to month, so I have provided an average of these expenses and income for 2020-2021:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13NwikqDf1BICZUcBULxpcCmbcQpzig5wJtGwo_vgD6M/edit?usp=sharing
There are a few recent updates to this average:
- We recently had to let go one of the security guards due to behavior problems, but his time shift was replaced with other workers so there is not much difference in expenses.
- Also, since May we started charging monthly fees to all owners in building 1, so since May we have finally been able to pay our bills without having to borrow from Elsie. However not all owners are paying their monthly fees on time, so again these are estimates of the actual income and expenses.
Let me also remind you that no one is making a profit on the monthly fees. Elsie and I do not receive a salary or any other income from the corporation. We only received your payment when you signed the lease agreements, and that was used for the most part to complete the construction.
In order to fulfill the wishes of some owners who want a reduction of their monthly fees due to the pandemic, we will have to stop some services from the expenses list. Bohol Jewel Corporation operates using it’s own account, and currently does not have extra reserves because we had to borrow for all of 2020 and part of 2021. Some expenses we just cannot stop like insurance, garbage, accountant, legal and permits. This only leaves the security guards, Romielyn, gardener/pool, PLDT internet, common water, common electric. So I welcome a discussion in the comments below as to which services these owners are suggesting we stop.
We have a legal obligation to provide some of these services so I will only consider such a change if ALL owners approve, especially those who are currently staying in their units.
Just as a reminder Elsie and I do not live at Bohol Jewel and so we do not benefit in any way from these services. We are here to accommodate the residents and stockholders and help find a mutual agreement.
I will just give my personal opinion here and let others give their opinions in comments:
- We spend a lot of time and money planting trees, bushes, Burmuda grass, and other landscaping. Stopping to maintain these will mean we will have to start all over again and will take a lot of time.
- Stopping the pool will require some additional expenses to protect the equipment and eventually restart the pool.
- One place we can save is in the PLDT internet, which is provided as a courtesy and not a contractual obligation. But PLDT does not have extra lines so if we stop, we will probably not be able to get high-speed fibre internet again.
- Romielyn’s salary is not a place we can cut the expenses because we need to have a manager in charge at Bohol Jewel. As I mentioned Elsie and I do not stay at Bohol Jewel, and we do not receive any salary from Bohol Jewel and therefore we are not expected to be there working there day to day. Without Romielyn (or a manager) everything would stop.
Restaurant and other expected opening
As this pandemic continues month after month, we keep pushing further the opening of the restaurant. We have now decided that we will not open the restaurant and bars, or hire any more staff, until the Philippines decides to fully open back to international travelers. This is so we can save our funding so we can be ready to open when the time comes. We don’t want to waste our reserves and have nothing left to open the restaurant when the time comes.
This means no quarantine, automatic visa upon arrival, like it was before. So if they simply start allowing some people to enter but keep other restrictions in place, we will still wait until there is a viable customers arriving in Bohol to make the restaurant and bars viable. Given the current situation in the Philippines, I honestly don’t expect any of this until 2022.
Generator usage during the pandemic
As you know we all contributed 7,160 pesos towards purchasing a generator in 2019. With 44 apartments, this only raised 315,000 pesos. We ended up buying a generator for 450,000 pesos with me and Elsie contributing the extra 135,000 pesos (in addition to 7,160 for our 10 apartments).
I have instructed Romielyn to add a “generator surcharge” to the bills of all residents of Bohol Jewel. This will be used to pay for fuel and maintenance of the generator. These expenses should only be paid by the people who are residing in the apartments and benefiting from the generator, and not by the people who are away.
There have been numerous power interruption in Bohol during the pandemic some lasting entire days, and the generator has been used much more than expected. So much that repairs have already been required. The battery had to be replaced, the ignition switch failed, and some other problems that I was not told what it was. My problem with this is that only 3 apartment owners are currently staying at Bohol Jewel, so all other 41 apartment owners are not benefiting at all from the generator. If the power interruptions continue we could easily be in a situation where something happens to the generator and requires replacement or expensive repair.
This would be very unfair to the 41 apartment owners who paid for the generator but got nothing out of it. So I would like to suggest that we stop using the generator during the pandemic and only resume when the pandemic is over. It’s fairly simple to plan some activities when there is a planned power outage, like going to the beach or the mall. I would like to invite all owners to give their opinions about this and we can decide what to do with a simple majority of those who contributed towards the generator. Short-term renters obviously did not pay anything towards the generator so we will not ask their opinions, this is only concerning owners who paid 7,160 pesos per apartment plus Elsie and I who paid 206,000 towards the generator.
My vote is that we stop the generator during the pandemic
I just want to go on record to say that if something happens to the generator during the pandemic, I will not be contributing like I did last time towards the purchase of another generator, we just don’t have the money. So it would be wise to keep the generator intact until the pandemic is over.
Situation in Bohol
As the rest of the world returns to normal, the Philippines is stuck in a Covid restrictions, that they mostly created themselves. Travel to the Philippines is still prohibited for foreigners, even if they are vaccinated. Those who can enter because of family ties have to have proper visas, undergo a 10 day facility quarantine in Manila, and further PCR tests after that.
Bohol recently went back to general community quarantine, which is an escalation from their previous status. Cases are at an all-time high. Although vaccinations are progressing, they are still far from reaching the levels needed to re-open the economy safely. This is why I don’t think much will change for the rest of 2021.
Other issues
- We had some water leaks from the roof after heavy rains. We have addressed those and my understanding is they are fixed.
- We also had a water pump failure in buildings 1 and 2, which has been fixed. This was due to a failed pressure switch. I have instructed Romielyn to keep some spare parts in the office in case of a future failure.
- The generator also stopped working a few weeks ago, because we are not on site at the moment I am not sure what the cause was, but a mechanic was called and fixed the generator.
- The street light in the parking lot broke after only one year, so we had to replace with a new one.
- And lastly the internet went out for several days earlier this month, and my understanding is it was a PLDT wide outage for the area. This has been fixed now.
Even though Bohol Jewel is not fully opened yet, we are already seeing some maintenance expenses which can only be paid for with the monthly fees. This is another reason why I don’t think reducing the monthly fee is a good option.
We don’t have any construction workers at Bohol Jewel any more. It just wasn’t possible to keep construction workers paid during the entire 1.5 year pandemic. Therefore any repairs that need to be done, are paid by the monthly fees that each apartment owner pays each month and is added to the list of expenses of the corporation.
New customer area
We have created this new customer area, similar to the discussion area we had before. I am planning to expand this customer area and have it be a place to talk about issues, opinions, complaints, voting and just keeping in touch no matter where in the world we are. This will hopefully replace the need to have meetings and send many emails back and forth. It will also allow all unit owners to be part of the discussion from anywhere. I plan to add some features such as allowing owners to send messages to each other and communicate better, if that is something you agree to.
The address of the customer area is where you are right now, https://blog.boholjewel.com. You will need to create a login the first time you use it if you want to leave comments. I’m sorry for those who created a login on our last system, but the last server crashed and we had to start over, hopefully this will be the last time.
- Login using Gmail or Linkedin. If you don’t have these or prefer to create a new login follow below:
- Just click “Login” at the top and then “register” a new username and provide your email. I suggest we all use our real first names as the username so it’s easier to know who is commenting.
- Then check your email for the link to create a password (if you don’t get this email check your spam folder). The password can be anything at least 8 character long (you can ignore the message saying your password it too weak).
Please use this customer area to give feedback, share your thoughts, and contribute to the discussion in a respectful manner.
Wishing all of you a safe end of year!
Sincerely,
Bill
Hi guys here is where you can leave a reply or comment. Just register so you can login, and then check your email and click the link to create a password. You can let the system generate a password or you can create one yourself, it just needs to be 8 characters, don’t worry about the weak password message.
In my humble opinion.
One whom invests in any type of real estate, has to consider that there are inherent risks to any investment…especially an apartment in a foreign country!
With that said, there will be some circumstances which are unexpected and out of our personal control which can come up and totally nullify our best made plans and intentions, cause extra expense and can take time to remedy.
We are in one of those situations now….and a somewhat serious one. No one is at fault but our senseless bureaucrats!
However, all of us have agreed to the same rules, reg’s and expenses as owners/leasees. THIS SHOULD NOT CHANGE! That is a part of the signed contract, to pay the fees to keep the project maintained and flowing. The project is going well and we all know what the expenses were when we signed the lease…that hasn’t changed.
Keep the place going normally…Do not stop any maintenance or anything else! it is too expensive to start up again and all the landscaping, etc. needs to be established and growing not dying! pool needs to be kept up. Keep the place operating as normal.
Do not cave into the whiners…lol
If they can’t pay… which I barely can, then maybe allow a small balance, to be paid in the future, without a late fee ?
If anything, replace the generator with a better one! and bill us for it… 🙂
Most of us won’t be able to enjoy the place because we can’t come. But that is the current situation…it won’t last forever.
Respectfully submitted , Mark Martinez
2nd comment
Bill, please keep the place going as normal.
I appreciate and understand you trying to make it work for everybody.
BUT
It is a retirement/vacation resort, as well as a permanent residence for a few and should be kept operating normally. We purchased and signed the lease, and agreed to the pay our Homeowners Fees on a monthly basis.
The fee is a part of the contract to lease and should always be paid as everyone expected and agreed too when they signed up.
Fully, unexpected crisis is always a possibility and should have been personally planned for or at least acknowledge before one leases a unit ??
Sure no one expected an epidemic or to be locked out and bleeding money…but sh*t happens.
It’s hard for all of us, but we must endure.
The Jewel must be kept operating as planned and agreed upon. Anything less would be detrimental in the long run.
Absolutely do not give up the PDLT high speed internet, the pool maintenance and care, or the landscape care. I wouldn’t worry about running the eating and drinking facilities, the generator during blackouts or night lighting for the few staying there.
If some are truly having difficulties in paying… then why did they purchase a place in a foreign country ?? Too many things can happen. They need to step up and pay up. I’m struggling here as well but I’m trying to make sure to fulfill my commitment.
If some are having trouble paying, then why did they agree to it? Tell them they to sell if they can’t afford it??
Maybe consider allowing some balance with no late fees or interest to be kept and paid at a later date when things open up more and cash is generated? IDK, but the fees should be paid as agreed upon so that the the place can be operating properly.
respectfully submitted, Mark Martinez unit 110
Hi Mark, I hope you are well and everything is OK for you in Hawaii. Thank you for your comment, it has been duly noted.
Since myself Daryl and Thomas are the only owners currently living in Bohol Jewel, we decided to share our recommendations and observations in this one email .
noelhodgers@gmail.com
theinzelmann@gmail.com
darylh56@hotmail.com.
INTERNET
You have said that the internet is being provided as a courtesy, however, it is shown as an expense of P6160. Could you please clarify this?
2. SECURITY GUARDS
We only have one qualified security guard. We suggest that he works 6 nights per week and Jerry the maintenance man can do the 7th. We think it is not necessary to have a guard during the day. Romielyn and Jerry are around to observe if any people are coming and going. There is no need to be paying anyone for daytime guard duty.
3. MAINTENANCE MAN
We only need one maintenance man. We would suggest Jerry as he is very competent and he could work one night as a guard in order to give Richard an evening off.
4. ROMIELYN
It seems that Romielyn has a lot of spare time (by her own admission ) even though she spent time cleaning the kitchen, restaurants, bars, and sometimes even apartments that you are managing. Perhaps we can employ her 50% and you can employ her for the other 50%. Another suggestion would be to terminate her employment and hire a bookkeeper/ accountant one day a week to read the meter, pay the bills and keep the maintenance account up to date. The pool bar fridges could be turned off and the bar closed. We understand this can be seen as a drastic measure but it could make big savings.
5. COMMON WATER
The water is quite expensive but we understand that this is the best service available. The water goes into your large water tank before it comes to Bohol Jewel property. We do understand there are two different rates, residential and business (Double the price) which rate are we paying? There are large limestone flakes that are constantly blocking the water pipes. Could it be the result of water entering your water tank via the deep well, as this water is meant to be potable and drinkable? Perhaps we should be paying the residential rate as it is entering your property first. Does the restaurant and bars have their own meters?
We suggest that all the down rainwater pipes be connected to the water tanks, we would then have free water during the rainy seasons. It is possible that we are breaching our permit by letting the water just run into other people’s properties. If we diverted the rainwater into the main cement tank behind building 2 (with pump and filters) this water could be used as primary water supply and make massive savings.
6 . COMMON ELECTRICITY.
We have noticed that the cost of electricity from Boheco has increased significantly over the past few months. A suggestion would be to turn off the tree lights completely and turn off every second light on the upstairs walkway. Is the electricity for the kitchen, restaurant, and bar paid for separately? And do they have separate meters? We would like to suggest that a new timer switch be installed for the pool pump and pool lights. The pool lights could be set for 3 hours a night. We have noticed that there are times that the pool lights have been still on at 1:30 am. This could also make significant savings in our electricity bill.
7 . MONTHLY MAINTENANCE FEES
Monthly maintenance fees need to be paid ON TIME to keep Bohol Jewel functional. People constantly in arrears should be reminded they could forfeit their unit under our lease agreement. It is understandable for someone to forget on the odd occasion but it should be pointed out that 6 months arrears could result in their unit being forfeited.
8 . GENERATOR
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Bill and Elsie for providing the extra money for purchasing this generator which has a bigger capacity than the original one we would have had.
Is there a warranty, instruction manual, and backup service provided for the generator? A diesel mechanic was called out by Daryl to fix the generator after it had broken down (Romielyn had no contact for a mechanic) he discovered the reason for the damage was caused by the initial incorrect wiring of the batteries. On further observation, we noticed that there is no radiator cap and the water coolant bottle has been cut open. (See pictures attached). Daryl is trying to find parts to replace these.
On receiving the diesel receipts from Romielyn we can see that the total amount of diesel purchased since the 30th of July was P7100. A 60kva diesel generator running at 1/4 capacity costs per hour on average, 300 to 350 pesos to run. (There is currently approx. 18litres (P800) in the generator still.
This works out that the generator over a 3-month period has run for just over A TOTAL OF 20 HOURS.
THE GENERATOR HAS BEEN RUNNING FOR LESS THAN 7 HOURS PER MONTH. This amount of usage is negligible.
As a result of this, myself, Daryl and Thomas vote for the generator to be left on.
9 . WATER PRESSURE PUMP
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Emile who is renting a unit here for installing the pressure switch on the pressure pump as we were unable to find an electrician to fix it.
We hope these suggestions are constructive and helpful,
Noel, Daryl and Thomas
P.S
We wanted to send some photos but don’t seem to be able in this comment section.
Hi Noel, Daryl and Thomas, thank you for getting your thoughts in one reply. I hope you guys are doing well.
1. Yes the internet is provided as a courtesy, of course the corporation (Romielyn) needs to have internet to conduct it’s business such as communicating with customers, that is he 6190 bill. We decided that instead of charging each apartment separately for wifi usage, we would just provide this for free, the bill is paid by the corporation.
2. OK sounds good to me. I will inform Romielyn who sets the schedule.
3. OK also, let me give that some thought.
4. Cutting the shift of Romielyn would really be a last resort. Who is going to train the new manager when we re-open? It took many months to get her up to speed with billing and knowing the customers and how to handle different situations. My understanding is there is growing interest in reservations from airbnb and elsewhere and a good possibility that we have guests in November and December, probably internal tourists, but this will require a full time manager.
5. We can have the Richli go directly into the blue tanks that will avoid the chlorine buildup that sometimes clogs the black pipe. Richli treats the water with chlorine and it leaves a residue.
6. OK sounds good.
7. Valid point.
8. The generator came with a one year warranty, which I think is expired now. 7 hours a month should be fine as long as it is maintained correctly. Is anyone checking the oil, fuel filters, coolant level, and other mechanical parts? The generator was never made part of the regular corporation expenses, when we calculated the monthly fee it never accounted for generator maintenance, repair or replacement. We just bought it as owners who wanted a generator in case of blackout. So I suppose we need to decide who is going to be responsible for the generator and the costs. For now I am adding a “generator surcharge” to the residents and guests who are staying there.
9. Thank you Emile, I apologize we could not get someone there to fix it sooner. Jovanie will be starting work there again soon, finishing the roof decks, so we will have a mechanic on site for these type of problems.
Thanks for the helpful comments guys, but how did you get a picture on your profile? I’m jealous!
Hi Bill, hi all who are involved in this communication. Let me make couple comments:
a) this message is sent on behalf of me and Kamil. For those who don’t know we own/lease several units in BJ, we invested together and want to stay part of the BJC in the future.
b) we pay and prepay our fees for all units we have in the resort.
c) we agree that resort/service cannot be stopped as a) people live there and b) reopening would take enormous effort and cost.
d) we believe that although s**t happens and current situation is nobody’s fault, any and every enterprise in the world wanting to survive must react. Not just accept circumstances. We believe some expenses could be trimmed. And/or could be used for contingency fund.
We are aligned with proposal sent by Noel, Daryl and Thomas. It would be a great test of our team ability to react on situations like this together.
Our suggestion is to take all points listed in Noel’s mail and quantify them. Also we support the actions aimed at any members on the corporation who do not comply with (agreed) rules to avoid additional costs for all members who comply. Now and in the future.
Let us know who/how/when will take a lead in this quantification and also if we can be of any assistance.
Have a great day/evening/morning wherever you are!
Voita & Kamil
Hi Vojta and Kamil, thank you for participating in the conversation. I will take the lead in this. Before we quantify any reductions in the monthly fee, you need to understand that from Jan 2020 – May 2021, the corporation had about 25k negative balance every month (see the income and expense spreadsheet). So this loan needs to be paid back, BJC has to pay it’s own bills.
I also want to point out that we were supposed to have a contingency fund like Vojta talked about. There was supposed to be extra every month for BJC to pay for maintenance, repairs, etc. Currently BJC does not have any contingency fund because we operated at 25k loss for 16 months during 2020-2021. It will take some time to build a contingency fund especially if we lower the monthly fee. Some things already need to be fixed/replaced.
But we can reduce the expenses like the prior post said so we are not wasting money, I’m in full agreement with that. But I don’t agree to reduce the monthly fee because there are many expenses.
Hello everyone,
we wanted to express ourselves briefly and write our opinion. We also agree with Daryl and Noel’s ideas and suggestions to optimize costs a little. Our suggestion would be to create an account or savings account where we can save part of the monthly payments for future repairs or maintenance. For this, the costs would have to be transparent so that we know exactly what is being paid by you. We will not get any further without a transparent invoice. We think the finances could be taken over by a selected person from our shareholders?
Thanks Monika and Jan
We already are transparent with the account and share it here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13NwikqDf1BICZUcBULxpcCmbcQpzig5wJtGwo_vgD6M/edit?usp=sharing
The receipts are at the office if you would like to see for yourself.
Hello Bill, your wish was to work together as a community so that all of our goals and expectations are met with full satisfaction, that’s why we imagine a transparent invoice as something different from you. What speaks against it, to put all monthly bills and contracts online, so that everyone has insight. I think, that would answer all of the questions and we could consider the issue closed forever.
Are there any ideas or implementations, as to how we can reduce costs a little under the difficult current situation? My last question would be, whether there is an invoice for the electricity generator so that we know which manufacturer it is, how long it has a guarantee and so on ..?
Thanks Monika&Jan
Hi Monika and Jan,
Our goal is to provide as much details about the income and expenses, it is not complicated and there is no reason for confusion. All the income is very simple, it’s 3,500 per month for each apt. The expenses I try to explain in the spreadsheet, but I will explain more in the next community announcement, that will be very soon.
We have already implement some cost savings including turning off some lights at night, we reduce the gardeners working. We are still working to implement more cost reduction and I will explain in next announcement.
The generator we buy is a 55 Kva diesel generator that was paid 450,000 pesos from the seller across from the Caltex after the bridge. It is a refurbished generator, not new. A new 55 KVA cost about 1 million. The seller provide a 1 year warranty that is already expired because it’s more than a year. We do not know the manufacturer except that it is made in China.